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Cuts

State Board of Education: Budget cuts ‘will adversely impact our students’

by Loknath Das April 5, 2024

written by Loknath Das

Image result for State Board of Education: Budget cuts 'will adversely impact our students' By Kelly Hinchcliffe

RALEIGH, N.C. — The State Board of Education approved $2.5 million in cuts to the state Department of Public Instruction on Tuesday as a result of mandated budget reductions by the General Assembly. Most of the cuts are expected to impact low-performing schools and teacher training in the state. An additional $737,000 in cuts are expected in the coming weeks.

The board voted unanimously Tuesday to make $1.6 million in staff cuts to the state education department, which include:

Seven full-time employees
Three temporary employees
Eight vacant positions in the following divisions: district and school transformation (six positions), educator effectiveness (one position) and curriculum and instruction (one position)
19 instructional coaches will get pay cuts and be reduced from 12-month to 10-month employees.

Board Chairman Bill Cobey declined to say which positions are being cut, citing personnel laws, but said they will be revealed at a later date. He said the majority of the staff cuts will be in the District Transformation and Educator Effectiveness divisions. The board plans to merge the two divisions into a new one, called District Support.

“Hopefully the districts can pick up any slack that is produced by this reduction,” Cobey said. “We’re further reducing the service to the districts. Hopefully you won’t see any huge impact any place, but there’s going to be marginal impact in certain places across the state. And we’re going to try our best to mitigate that.”

The board also approved $865,168 in operating reductions, which include:

$306,705 – Contractual services
$143,666 – Employee education/professional development
$131,412 – Temporary employees
$87,493 – Travel
$69,365 – Supplies, materials, program delivery
$62,853 – Equipment/maintenance of equipment
$26,164 – Postage
$22,510 – Phone
$15,000 – Dues & subscriptions

Board member Eric Davis said the budget cuts “will adversely impact our students, especially those in districts and schools which rely most heavily on the Department of Public Instruction.”

“And, so, my hope is that in future years our superintendent, in partnership with the General Assembly, will prevent future adverse impacts to our students through budget reductions to the Department of Public Instruction,” Davis added.

State Superintendent Mark Johnson attended Tuesday’s meeting by conference call and released the following statement after the board’s vote:

“While these funding cuts will be challenging, I did not run for Superintendent of Public Instruction to shirk away from the challenges of leadership. The General Assembly is clearly frustrated with the lack of accountability of the State Board of Education, and I am too. The culture of a non-accountability created by the State Board is one of the reasons I sought funding for a top-to-bottom, third-party review of DPI. By studying the results from this upcoming operational review and working together with the professional staff at DPI, I believe the department will come out stronger, more efficient, and more effective at supporting public schools in NC. The Board seems to prefer to complain and instead focuses only on more of the same. I embrace the positive changes that can result from addressing this substantive challenge head-on. We can and will be a better DPI at the end of this process.”

The General Assembly voted to reduce the state education department’s operating funds by 6.2 percent – $3.2 million – for 2017-18 and 13.9 percent – $7.3 million – for 2018-19.

[“Source-wral”]

April 5, 2024 0 comment

Education

DeVos Protests In Denver; House To Make Cuts To Education

by Loknath Das April 5, 2024

written by Loknath Das

Hundreds of protesters greet Education Secretary Betsy DeVos this week in Denver, where she addressed the American Legislative Exchange Council.

In this week’s edition of our education news roundup, we take you from school vouchers to AP exams to community college.

Betsy DeVos speaks to American Legislative Exchange Council

Protests greeted the education secretary in Denver this week at her speech to the American Legislative Exchange Council. Her family has close ties to the organization, which brings together state legislators, free-market conservatives and corporate sponsors to write model bills that get adopted all over the country.

ALEC and Betsy DeVos both back vouchers, tax credit scholarships, education savings accounts and expansions of charter, home-schooling, virtual and for-profit providers. Her rhetoric, here, was more fiery than in previous appearances, as she faced off against critics —”defenders of the status quo” — and praised ALEC for “the fight” to expand school choice. She also hit familiar notes:

“Choice in education is good politics because it’s good policy. It’s good policy because it comes from good parents who want better for their children.”

As we reported, the timing of her speech was a bit awkward:

House Republicans have just rejected the school choice expansions in Trump’s initial budget request. Recent studies have shown mixed-to-negative results for voucher programs, and there have been successful fights against voucher expansion even in staunchly red states like Texas.

House budget resolution has cuts to education

The Republican-controlled House has been working on its spending plan, including for education.

This week, the budget committee adopted a plan to cut $20 billion from education over 10 years. The resolution, which is only one step toward becoming a law, makes reference to streamlining the federal college loan program, a likely source of some of the cuts.

Last week, House Republicans introduced an appropriations bill through September 2018 that freezes Pell Grants, the largest need-based aid program for college students, and takes back $3.3 billion from the program’s surplus. The budget includes $2.4 billion in education cuts. By contrast, the Trump budget proposal called for more than $9 billion in cuts.

Many more girls taking AP computer science

The nonprofit Code.org, which promotes computer science education, noted that 29,000 female high school students took an Advanced Placement exam in computer science this spring, 10 times more than 10 years ago. In addition, participation by underrepresented minority groups has doubled compared to a year ago.

Much of this growth is due to last year’s introduction of a new AP course, AP Computer Science Principles, a course designed “to appeal to a broader audience,” according to College Board materials. The new exam does not require a specific programming language, unlike AP computer science A, which focuses on Java.

Despite the progress in exposure to computer science in high schools, there is a long way to go: Only a little over 1 in 4 of those who took an AP computer science exam this year were girls, and only 1 in 5 were underrepresented minorities.

California community college chancellor calls for dropping algebra

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the California community college system, the nation’s largest, told NPR’s Robert Siegel this week that he wants to adopt other pathways to a degree that don’t require algebra. Algebra is the single most failed college course. “There are other math courses that we could introduce that tell us a lot more about our students,” he said, mentioning statistics as a possible alternative.

Billions in private student loan debt may be erased

Tens of thousands of borrowers could have their decades-old private student loan debt forgiven because of to financial companies’ poor record keeping, an investigation by The New York Times found this week.

The forgiven debt would amount to $5 billion — which is just a fraction of the $108 billion in outstanding private student loans (and an even smaller fraction of the $1.4 trillion student loan market). Private student loans are a more expensive and riskier way to pay for college, and they are on the decline compared with in the years before the Great Recession.

Feminist groups call on Candice Jackson to reject “rape myths”

A total of 58 feminist and legal organizations signed a letter this week calling on the chief of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights to clarify the data on campus sexual assault and to meet with survivors. Candice Jackson apologized last week for remarks to The New York Times that “90 percent” of campus rape allegations “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk’ ” or are brought by unhappy ex-girlfriends.

The letter cited Justice Department data that 23 percent of women, 24 percent of gender nonconforming students and 6 percent of men are assaulted while in college. In addition, fewer than 10 percent of reports are found to be false.

[“Source-npr”]

April 5, 2024 0 comment

Education

Education budget cuts will make system ‘unsustainable’

by Loknath Das April 5, 2024

written by Loknath Das

Members of NASUWT teachers union stage one-day strike in November

Further cuts to the education budget will make Northern Ireland’s education system “unsustainable,” a teachers’ union leader has said.

NASUWT NI president Susan Parlour made the comments during a speech to members at the union’s annual conference.

She also said the Education and Training Inspectorate, which carries out school inspections, was “not fit for purpose”.

The NASUWT is one of the largest teaching unions in Northern Ireland.

Its members are currently engaged in rolling strike action over pay and workload, along with members of the INTO union.

‘Penny-pinching approach’

National officer Justin McCamphill also spoke at the union’s annual conference in Belfast, warning of further strike action if devolution was not restored.

Teachers were prepared to fight for adequate budgets for schools and against the erosion of teachers pay, he said.

In October 2016, all teaching unions in Northern Ireland rejected an offer that saw pay frozen in 2015-16 and a rise of 1% for 2016-17.

Ms Parlour was heavily critical of what she called “political myopia and a penny-pinching approach to education”.

“The so-called fresh start agreement, rather than living up to the positive promise of its name, has brought stagnation and rot to classrooms,” she said.

NASUWT NI president Susan Parlour — Image captionSusan Parlour said cuts were being imposed “mercilessly”

She also claimed that front-line services, including those for children with special educational needs, had suffered due to budget reductions.

“This clearly suggests that we have politicians here in NI who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing,” she said.

“While these cuts were being imposed mercilessly on our schools, let’s not forget that our government saw fit to send millions of pounds up in smoke in the flawed RHI scheme.”

In January, former Education Minister Peter Weir said that schools needed an extra £240m over the next three years just to maintain current spending levels.

He also warned that schools faced making “redundancies and savings”.

“Efficiencies in and of themselves will not be enough to avoid the sort of pain that will be there if there is no new money at all,” he warned.

Subsequently, 15 primary school principals from County Down wrote a joint letter to parents warning their schools were facing “financial disaster”.

[“Source-bbc”]

April 5, 2024 0 comment

Education

Sutton secondary heads ask parents for help to fight budget cuts

by Rajdeep April 5, 2024

written by Rajdeep

Secondary classroom

Heads in the south London borough of Sutton have enlisted parents in a bid to fight budget cuts.

Urging parents to email MPs and councillors, the heads told them: “They are not listening to us and we hope instead they might listen to you.”

The cuts mean fewer teachers, larger classes, less choice, less support and fewer opportunities, says a statement on local secondary school websites.

The government says school budgets are at their highest level ever.

But, the 16 secondary head teachers say every secondary school in the borough faces cuts to staffing and resources as budgets fail to keep pace with costs.

“Will you help protect your child’s education?” the statement asks parents.

It says school budgets have been cut by 8-10% over the last few years “as unfunded pay rises, increased pension and national insurance costs and ‘taxes’ such as the Apprenticeship Levy have meant schools have less money”.

It adds: “This means cuts in other areas of the school to fund these extra costs. The future looks bleak.”

One head teacher told the BBC that government plans to resolve funding inconsistencies between local authority areas through a new National Funding Formula for schools is “a diversionary tactic”.

And even though Sutton is due to benefit under the new formula “all it will do is partially offset” wider funding problems, said the head, who asked not to be identified.

The move is the latest in a series of campaigns by heads.

West Sussex heads wrote to MPs asking where to make cuts – whether through laying off teachers, reducing school hours or closing counselling services.

Heads in Cheshire warned of a four-day week, the scrapping of some subjects and the loss of support staff.

And North Somerset heads asked Theresa May to reconsider “retrograde” plans for new grammar schools.

The Sutton heads, some of whom run very high performing schools, say they “are close to crisis”.

They warn that they face a double budget squeeze from both central and local government, with the local council proposing to claw back 0.5% of basic school funding from September to meet other costs.

“Head teachers are not known for their militancy,” the statement continues.

Parents are asked to seek assurances that:

Schools will no longer be hit with unfunded wage rises
They will be exempted from the Apprenticeship Levy

Late last year the National Audit Office said state schools in England would have to reduce spending by £3bn by 2019-20.

The BBC has approached both Sutton Council and the Department for Education for responses.

A Sutton Council spokesman said no-one was available for comment.

The Department for Education maintains that school funding is at record levels – £40bn per year in 2016-17, including £2.5bn in pupil premium payments supporting disadvantaged children.

The department also argues that the new funding formula will provide a much fairer basis for allocating funds to schools and will give head teachers more certainty over their future budgets and long-term planning.

[Source:- BBC]

April 5, 2024 0 comment

News Update

Syria conflict: Army cuts IS supply route into al-Bab

by Rajdeep April 5, 2024

written by Rajdeep

People flee the battle for the Islamic State-controlled al-Bab (4 February 2017)

Syrian government forces have advanced towards so-called Islamic State’s last major stronghold in Aleppo province, cutting off the main supply route into al-Bab, a monitoring group reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said troops had captured Tal Uwayshiya, a hill 9km (6 miles) to the south-east.

It overlooks a key road linking al-Bab to the IS-controlled city of Raqqa, in a neighbouring province.

Al-Bab is now almost surrounded by Turkish-backed Syrian rebels.

The rebels are laying siege from the north, east and west.

It is not yet clear whether the Syrian government is also aiming to capture the town, which is considered a prize by all sides in the five-year civil war.

But a military source told the pro-government al-Masdar website that troops were now within striking distance of the village of Tadif, on the outskirts of al-Bab.

The government has denounced Turkey’s support of the rebel offensive, which was launched in August with the aim of clearing IS militants from a border area north of al-Bab and limiting gains to the east by Kurdish forces.

Despite that, President Bashar al-Assad’s ally Russia has carried out joint air strikes with Turkey on IS positions around al-Bab since January.

The Syrian Observatory also reported on Monday that Turkish troops and rebel fighters were engaged in deadly clashes with IS militants around the village of Bazaa, east of al-Bab, which was recaptured by the jihadists over the weekend.

Government forces were also battling IS in the central province of Homs, after capturing the Hayyan oilfield west of Palmyra, the UK-based monitoring group said.

Turkish and Syrian rebel forces in the Bazaa area, east of al-Bab, on 4 February 2017 — Image captionTurkish-backed rebel forces were driven out of the village of Bazaa, east of al-Bab, on Saturday

It comes as a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters begins a new phase of their offensive to isolate Raqqa.

The Syrian Democratic Forces announced on Saturday that it aimed to take areas east of the city, including the main road linking it to Deir al-Zour province, almost all of which is controlled by IS.

The operation is being supported by air strikes by the US-led multinational coalition against IS and several hundred special forces personnel on the ground.

[Source:- BBC]

April 5, 2024 0 comment

Education

‘Just about managing’ children hardest hit by proposed education funding cuts, warn unions

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

just about managing JAM children hardest hit by funding cuts say unions

New analysis of government funding plans shows £658 per pupil cut for secondary schools with high numbers of JAM children

Those hardest hit by proposed changes in school funding will be children in families that are “just about managing”, say unions.

The NUT and ATL unions have carried out a new analysis of the proposed figures for 19,719 schools released by the government in its consultation on a national funding formula.

They calculate that primary schools with the least number of children from “just about managing” (JAM) families will lose £297 a year per pupil between 2015/16 and 2019/20, but schools with the highest number of JAM children will lose £447 a year per pupil.

For secondaries, those with the fewest JAM children will lose £489 a year per pupil compared to £658 a year for those with most JAM children. They define the “just about managing” children as those who are not currently receiving free school meals, but have done so in the past six years.

“These are shocking figures that will create despair in schools up and down the country,” said Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the NUT. “Far from being the levelling up of funding that councils and heads have demanded, the government is levelling down and schools across the country face real terms cuts in this parliament.”

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL, added: “All the Government’s warm words about protecting the poorest children look meaningless. Many schools are already struggling to make ends meet and are desperately trying to raise money from parents for school books and IT. These cuts will make the situation even more desperate. If the Government doesn’t increase the overall amount of funding for schools, a generation of children will have a severely restricted education with nothing beyond the basic curriculum and thousands of school staff will lose their jobs.”

The unions say that proposed government changes to school funding announced last month are worse than had been expected.

Before the announcement, the unions had jointly launched their own estimates of the impact of the plans on individual institutions, which the government described at the time as “scaremongering”.

Today the ATL and NUT have said:

They predicted that overall schools funding would be cut by £2.5bn, but the National Audit Office has said it will be £3bn.
They thought funding would be cut for every pupil in 92 per cent of England’s schools – but on the basis of figures released for the National Funding Formula consultation, 98 per cent of schools will have reduced funding.
While they had predicted secondary schools would be £365 per pupil worse off in 2020, the proposed figure is now £477 per pupil.

But the government has said that the new figures are “fundamentally misleading”. It says they ignore the fact that pupil numbers are rising rapidly, meaning more money will be going into schools and adds that the proposals include increased funding for pupils with additional needs, which includes a wide definition of deprivation.

“School funding is at its highest level on record and will be over £40bn in 2016-17,” said a government spokesperson. “To suggest that we are taking money out of the system is simply incorrect; we are protecting per pupil funding so where pupil numbers rise, the amount of money schools receive will increase.

“We have also set out proposals to end the historic postcode lottery in school funding. The proposed formula would mean, taking into account the pupil premium, that funding for pupils with additional needs would account for over a fifth of the core schools budget.”

[Source:- tes]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Education

Schools face cuts of £3bn, says watchdog

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

pencil graph

State schools in England will have to find £3bn in savings by 2019-20, says the public spending watchdog.

Schools face 8% budget cuts and about 60% of secondary schools already have deficits, warns a funding analysis from the National Audit Office (NAO).

The Department for Education is about to launch a new funding formula, which will see 10,000 schools gaining money and similar numbers losing.

To ease the transition, those losing will have annual cuts limited to 1.5%.

Education Secretary Justine Greening will reveal later on Wednesday how the different funding rules will be applied – with suggestions that it could mean reduced budgets for schools in inner London.

It is likely to mean bigger budgets for areas which have been less well-funded – with areas such as Barnsley and Plymouth highlighted as currently getting less than Hackney or Coventry.

“These historic proposals will mean schools are funded according to the needs of their pupils, not their postcode,” says Ms Greening.

Life chances ‘at risk’

The government’s new national funding formula is designed to stop inequalities which see schools in different parts of the country, with similar intakes, receive different levels of per-pupil budget.

It will mean reallocations of funding rather than extra investment overall.

The NAO report highlights shortages in the current budget.

It says that schools are not prepared for the “scale and pace” of the cuts facing them.

Five head teachers’ and teachers’ unions have issued a joint statement saying schools face the “biggest real-terms cuts in a generation”.

Malcolm Trobe, head of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We are deeply concerned that the life chances of young people are being put at risk by the government’s under-funding of education.”

Ann Lyons, head teacher at St John Fisher Catholic Primary School in north west London, said that the school is already struggling to maintain services and is cutting activities.

“We’ve been relatively well protected but we are now at the stage we’re at breaking point and the only way some schools are going to manage this significant cut in real terms is through staff cuts – and that’s going to add to workload,” she said.

Sean Maher, head teacher of Richard Challoner School in Kingston, said he feared that the hard work of school staff was concealing the extent of the financial difficulties.

“So teachers strive harder, support staff plug gaps and leaders try to sleep at night whilst trying to solve a problem that is not of their making.”

The NAO report says funding is not keeping pace with increased pupil numbers and rising costs of national insurance and pension contributions – and the budget gap will have reached £3bn by the end of the decade.

The overall budget is protected against inflation, but the NAO report says that rising numbers of pupils will mean schools will face cuts in real-terms per-pupil income.

The report says that about 60% of secondary schools are in deficit, and forecasts shortfalls averaging £326,000 by 2020.

There is also a warning that the Education Funding Agency, part of the Department for Education, is not intervening rapidly enough when there are financial concerns about schools.

School leaders have warned of deepening financial problems – with head teachers in West Sussex threatening that this could mean cutting school hours.

Almost every state school head in the local authority had written to the Prime Minister Theresa May in the autumn warning of the “dire financial position”.

Bigger class sizes

“Schools are struggling to function adequately on a day-to-day basis, and, in addition, we are severely hampered in our ability to recruit and retain staff, work with reasonable teacher-pupil ratios and to buy basic equipment,” said the letter from more than 250 heads.

A joint statement from heads’ and teachers’ unions – ASCL, NAHT, NUT, ATL and Voice – says that schools “urgently need additional investment”.

“We are already seeing job losses, increased class sizes and cuts to courses in our schools and colleges,” it says.

A Department for Education spokesman said that currently “schools have more funding than ever before for children’s education, totalling over £40bn”.

He added that the national fair funding formula would “give head teachers certainty over their future budgets, helping them make long-term plans and secure further efficiencies”.

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: “This is the reality: the Tories are cutting school budgets.

“All we have seen from this government is six years of turmoil in our schools and nothing to show for it.”

Liberal Democrat education spokesman John Pugh said the government had “completely the wrong priorities”.

“It is a disgrace that while schools face a severe funding crisis, £240m is being spent on expanding grammars,” he said.

[Source:- BBC]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Education

Foreign languages A-level slump blamed on cuts

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

French

A sharp decline in entries to modern foreign language A-levels has been blamed by head teachers on severe funding pressures.

Entries to A-levels in French have dropped by 6.4% from last year, in German by 4.2% and in Spanish by 2.7%.

Malcolm Trobe of the ASCL heads’ union said schools and colleges were finding it hard to run courses with small pupil numbers, due to funding shortages.

The government replied that it had been encouraging pupils to take languages.

This is mainly through the English Baccalaureate – the wrap-around qualification which requires pupils to sit a range of certain GCSES including a language.

‘Narrowed choices’

The claimed effect of funding shortages comes as pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are receiving their A-level results.

But Mr Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said he was worried about the “continuing decline” in the number of A-level entrants in modern foreign languages, and other “minority” subjects such as music, and design and technology.

“These statistics reflect the fact that sixth forms and colleges are finding it increasingly difficult to run courses where there are relatively small numbers of students because of severe funding pressures,” he said.

“The level of post-16 funding is woeful and urgently needs to be addressed.

“We are in danger of becoming trapped in a vicious circle where entries to these very important subjects continues to decline and there are consequently fewer people to teach them in the future, exacerbating an ongoing recruitment crisis,” he added.

Mr Trobe also said changes to the AS-level – which do not now count towards the final A-level grade – had also effectively narrowed pupils’ choices.

In the past, pupils had generally been allowed to take four subjects and then drop one at the end of the first year, he said.

Now, he argued, “we are just reducing curriculum choice, full stop.”

‘Worry’

National Association of Head Teachers general secretary, Russell Hobby, said that while it was “good to see an increase in the top grades awarded in modern foreign language”, a national strategy needed to be implemented to address the drop in entries.

He said: “Yet again we see a decrease in the number of students taking these subjects.”

“We need to ensure that there are enough trained teachers to offer a breadth of languages, and for schools to be supported to ensure primary pupils are also exposed to the challenges of learning a language,” he added.

Schools minister Nick Gibb acknowledged that the drop-off in foreign languages was a “worry”.

“There has been a slight decline in modern foreign languages but the introduction of the EBacc has arrested the historic fall of foreign languages at GCSE and we expect this will grow the pool of young people who are equipped to go on to study languages at A level.”

The Department for Education said it was protecting funding for 16- to 19-year-olds and ended the unfair difference between post-16 schools and colleges.

[Source:- BBC]

April 4, 2024 0 comment

Internet

Apple Pay Competitor Delays Product, Cuts About 30 Jobs

by Rajdeep April 4, 2024

written by Rajdeep

Apple Pay Competitor Delays Product, Cuts About 30 Jobs

Merchant Customer Exchange, a mobile payments company started by major retailers including Wal-Mart Stores, said it will eliminate 30 employees and postpone the national introduction of its highly publicized product, a would-beApple Pay competitor.

The staff cuts will affect about 40 percent of MCX employees at the Waltham, Massachusetts-based startup, which was founded with funding from Wal-Mart, Target Corp. and Best Buy Co. The retail giants are looking to the company to help reduce the role played by Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. and cut the fees they pay to the financial services. The retailers loathe paying fees to accept credit cards in their stores and have long sought better data on what their customers buy.

In 2014, MCX announced plans to introduce CurrentC, a mobile payment application to compete with Apple Pay and Google’s mobile-wallet app, but faced challenges from the start. Shortly after beginning a test in Columbus, Ohio, the product was hacked. The application also limited users to providing their checking account details or using private-label store credit cards, like Target’s REDcard, rather than bank-issued debit cards like competing products.

In announcing the product delay and job cuts, Chief Executive Officer Brian Mooney said MCX will concentrate on “working with financial institutions, like our partnership with Chase, to enable and scale mobile payment solutions.”

Last year, MCX joined with JPMorgan Chase & Co. to allow the bank’s mobile wallet, Chase Pay, to be used at any of the company’s 40 participating retailers, restaurants and gas stations.

April 4, 2024 0 comment